James Madison

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder their Constitution a miracle their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.